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Property of the Half-Blood Prince

Chapter 6: My Love and Your Body

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Hello Adder, he wrote, sitting in his very own flat in muggle London, with his feet pointedly resting on the coffee table. It took me a week, but I found a CD with the piece you mentioned. Lycoris radiata, it's beautiful. Thank you.

Harry left the book open on his lap and considered whether it was ridiculous to hang up a hammock. Ginny had talked him out of it last time, but now he was freshly seventeen and embracing his outer child. If one discounted Sirius—which Harry did—he was completely without adult supervision.

Like Harry, Adder had a charm that let him know when to check his book for a new message. I'm glad you liked it, he wrote back. The next words felt almost shy, Would you appreciate further recommendations?

Sure. Harry chewed the end of his quill, then figured he might as well ask. Do you know any good apothecaries? I have a potion I'm supposed to regularly take. Madam Pomfrey had given him enough of his puberty blocker to last the summer, but now that he was pretending to be a responsible rebellious teen, he needed to look into getting his own supply.

The answer came slowly, like Adder's usually did when they were talking about anything actually important. Severus Snape has opened an apothecary in Knockturn Alley. He is a master at his art.

Harry huffed a laugh. What's he selling? Fame, glory, and death?

Nothing so extravagant, I assure you.

Alright, thanks. Harry checked the clock on the mantle, which had just ticked over to 'Time to go'. I'll talk to you soon. There was a niggling suspicion that had been growing in the back of his mind, and Harry wanted to put it to rest.

.oOo.

The shop was brightly lit, a stark contrast to the lurking shadows of the alley he'd just come in from. Harry heard the bell signalling his arrival and took a look around Prince's Potions in the meantime. In front of the bare brick walls were steel and wood shelves, like in Vernon's garage. A few ingredients and potions were on display, but most of the stock was behind a very serious looking counter.

"Potter," Severus said, his voice sounding tired more than cutting.

"Hello, Professor."

"I'm sure your myopia has not yet advanced to the stage where you cannot discern that I am not, any longer, your Professor."

He was still the same Severus. Harry hadn't been sure, because he was wearing a white lab coat instead of his teaching robes.

"Was there a reason for your visit, besides ogling me? I have a volatile potion that needs stirring in two minutes."

"Yes." Harry swallowed, not sure how much Severus already knew. He'd probably been brewing Harry's potions already, but had he known they were for him rather than for Blaise?

Severus' raised brow looked more patient than it had any right to.

"Actually, it's going to take a bit. Can I explain it to you while you work?"

The potions master said nothing, merely spinning to walk through a silvery curtain in the back. His lab coat billowed just so. Swallowing, Harry followed. He was an adult, he reminded himself, and Severus was a professional. There was no reason to feel so shy about it—

And at the same time, he didn't want Severus to judge him. The man had loved his mother, would he see it as sacrilege that Harry wanted to change the body Lily had birthed him?

While Severus counted out his stirs and the vervaine he was adding, Harry felt himself slowly relax. The steam smelled of lavender, and the purple bubbles of the Calming Draught were soothing to watch.

Again, Harry let his eyes wander around the room, marvelling at the difference to the damp dungeon classroom. The lab looked more like an industrial kitchen than anything else. He smiled at the jars of pickled animals standing decoratively on the high shelves, and the neatly chopped ingredients lying out beside Severus' notes. And there it was.

A small black journal, identical to the one Harry had sitting on his coffee table at home.

He stepped forward and touched the leather, already knowing that he'd find the familial magic layered into it.

"Unhand that!"

Even in white, Severus looked like a big, looming bat. "Sorry," Harry said.

"I left Hogwarts for more privacy, Potter, not less." He sounded a bit resigned.

"Sorry," Harry said again. "I just thought it looked familiar. I have one just like it."

There was understanding glimmering in Severus' eyes. For a long moment, neither of them said anything. Then, Severus moved to turn off the flame under his cauldron and the spell was broken.

"I'm trans," Harry blurted out, so that he wouldn't blurt out anything else. "Madam Pomfrey had me on a blocking potion, same as Blaise, and said I could start with male puberty when I turned seventeen. So, I wanted to give that a try."

"I see." Severus stepped back, leaning against a workbench. He did not seem to be judging, but Harry wished he'd do something a little less intimidating with his face. "I would ask that you send for your records, to be sure. Are you undergoing counselling? I trust that you would make the right decisions for yourself, but it's not a choice made lightly. The reversal potion is…unpleasant."

"I know. I've got a counsellor." She was muggle, ergo had never known the name Harry Potter before he'd walked through her door.

Severus nodded once, sharply. "In that case, I'll be waiting for you to write."

Harry left Prince's Potions feeling a bit dazed. He leaned against the outside wall until the alley hag walked past him for the third time. Then he stood, took a clearing breath, and apparated home.

The book sat there, innocent as ever. He hadn't suspected that his pen pal was Severus Snape, but in his heart he'd gone through all the Slytherins in the school and eliminated everyone else.

In retrospect, there had been little clues, and he'd probably dropped more than enough clues of his own. Severus hadn't looked surprised at the revelation, but spies didn't live long without an exceptional poker face.

Sitting on his couch, Harry wrung his sweating hands and stared at the book some more. The cover was worn, the pages almost all filled with his and his friend's cramped handwriting.

There was a universe, he was sure, in which Severus would be the one who wrote first. I have ascertained that your identity is Harry Potter, he might say, or, It has come to my attention that our alter-egos have given way to more accurate information.

This was the man Harry had shared his deepest fears and stupidest dreams with. The friend who had kept him company in the moments he'd thought never to come back from, and whose poems Harry had slowly but surely fallen in love with. And this whole time, the whole beauty of their friendship had revolved around them not knowing each other's real names.

In this universe, Harry might have made a good Slytherin, but he had told the hat—what he wanted to be was a Gryffindor. He opened the book and wrote.

. * . * .

My Heart

His eyes are as black as a hole in the ground
His hands are as stained as a bib
He has my heart now
Hope he does me proud
The good man who spied on the Dark Lord

. * . * .

As if Severus had been waiting, the reply appeared instantly. Tell me you're not Ginny Weasley, he said.

Harry laughed. Worse, he wrote back. But you knew that already. He took a deep breath, wiped his hands on his pants, and re-dipped his quill.

Fifteen years ago, the first time I lived through my fifth year at Hogwarts, Umbridge had me write lines with a blood quill during detentions. I had that scar until the day I died at age thirty. It said, "I must not tell lies."

Severus didn't take long to process this. In that case, he said, tell me the truth. I'll believe you.

So Harry did.

.oOo.

A week later, once Harry had picked up his potion and spent the whole time not looking at Severus' face, he sat down with dinner in one hand and his quill and book in the other. It had become a familiar evening ritual.

You didn't seem surprised, Harry wrote, after I revealed my secret identity.

Neither did you, when you walked into my workplace and started touching my possessions.

I suppose I wanted it to be you, but I was also in denial about it. You were my professor for a long time.

As your professor, I did have a handwriting sample from every student to attend Hogwarts over the past decade. You have always had a knack for thinking yourself far subtler than you actually were.

Severus had said Harry was 'up to something,' so often that Harry had stopped paying attention to the day's exact accusations. Still, he could see the irony. He'd read the Half Blood Prince's potions text back to front plenty of times, and had looked at Severus' instructions on the board once a week for all of fifth year. Somehow, he had never seen the writing on the wall.

You're also especially obtuse, Severus wrote.

Maybe I didn't want to know. Maybe it was the point of things, to be able to pretend to be strangers. It was probably why they'd each kept their suspicions as just that, never acting until it was safe to be sure.

Do you regret it? Severus asked.

Not at all. Harry hadn't even considered it.

He could almost feel Severus' smug smile on the page as he answered, Me neither, Harry.

I'm glad.

.oOo.

Harry and Severus hadn't seen each other beyond another scheduled visit, where Harry had done little more than pick up his ordered potions.

Their book, meanwhile, was down to the last empty page. They had started sending Hedwig back and forth with letters instead, and even exchanged Christmas presents.

Harry had sent a copy of his NEWT results, which he'd taken at the Ministry resits that winter. Severus' answering, Well Done Harry! had kept him grinning all through the Weasleys' family dinner.

A dragon made of brilliant purple sparkles was winging around the the Burrow. They'd all finished celebrating the New Year with mistletoe and the associated trappings an hour ago. With his stomach fizzing almost as loudly as the fireworks Fred and George were still trying to put out, Harry pulled out his trusty book and turned to the final page.

Happy New Year, Severus.

The man didn't make him wait. Likewise, Harry.

With liquid courage still churning within him, he penned the thought that had been chasing through his mind for half a year, ever since he'd done the Gryffindor thing by declaring his love via limerick. You never did answer my poem, he wrote.

What did you want me to reply? Your poetry is atrocious.

It was, in Severus' rather roundabout way, not a rejection. With his heart in his throat, Harry said, So show me you can do better.

He meant to close the book and go to bed, but Severus was already answering. As Harry watched, the poem took shape, with the occasional line getting crossed out and rewritten until Severus was happy with it.

. * . * .

Your Body

How I long to run my hands across your body!
There is softness, strength, and beauty;
your shape is changing, from one day to the next.
Who else will worship
each new hair as it grows?

I would kiss you, if you let me:
kiss your scars and your skin,
run my fingers through your hair.
hold your name on my lips
Sing you to sleep as I hold, you
hold me within—

Your body,
it was never about your body.
But now the thought of it,
the idea of you keeps me awake.
I dream of knowing your smell, your touch,
new parts of you I must learn by rote.

I have cherished your heart,
I have made love to your soul.
I have laid out my faults on a platter
and you devoured me like a morsel.
In a way, taking me inside, you
made me complete—

Your body
of a comfortable stranger, a foreign friend.
In my mind I am tracing the silver linings
of your unhappiest memories
with my tongue I would blow
it all away like a song in a dream.

Forget about pain, or sorrow,
forget all the ink that has flowed
between us like blood.
I want to get to know you as a man
who never imagined someone like, you
loved me too.

. * . * .

And underneath it, the space had entirely run out.

Groaning, Harry whistled for Hedwig, took one look at the firework-dragon still refusing to die outside, and buried his face in his hands.

"You can deliver this bright and early tomorrow," he told her, passing over a folded scrap of parchment with a quickly-scribbled note. "It's for Severus, and you mustn't let anyone else see."

Harry didn't want to know what the Weasleys would think if they saw it spelled out like that, black on white.

Dear Severus

Your Place or mine?

.oOo.

Epilogue

They watched as McGonagal cast the spell that sealed the white marble tomb over Albus' body.

Harry had his arm around Willow's shoulder, glad for the comforting presence of Severus right behind them.

"You can still go to Hogwarts next year, sweetheart," Harry whispered, handing their daughter a tissue. "I'm sure Headmistress McGonagal is going to be just as great."

He ignored Severus' scoff behind him. They had argued just last night, and the week before, and the month before that, about how Willow's Hogwarts experience was supposed to go. Harry was firmly convinced she should take the invisibility cloak with her, before its enchantment faded into nothing.

Severus thought children should not own such things. He usually argued very eloquently, and Harry usually won because he had a certain trick with his tongue that left Severus conveniently speechless.

Once the service was over and their daughter was safely in bed with a stalwart Dobby to watch her, Severus and Harry made one more trip to the marble tomb.

"It's better if I don't touch it," Harry said.

"This is grave-robbing," Severus whispered back.

It had been ridiculously easy to levitate the lid aside. Albus lay there, looking as if he was sleeping, albeit in a very grey kind of way. He most likely had never slept with the Elder Wand held on his chest like that, but Harry wasn't going to question it when it suited his purposes.

"Severus, he doesn't need it anymore. Besides, he would have wanted this."

"We are literally removing the possessions of a dead man from his tomb. You cannot tell me this isn't grave-robbing." Nonetheless, he moved to touch the Wand clutched in Albus' hand.

"I didn't say it wasn't, just that Albus wouldn't mind."

"Tell that to his corpse. He's not letting go."

"Well then jiggle it. But hurry up, for fuck's sake." Harry looked up towards the school. Nobody had come looking yet, but Hogwarts' wards really should have alerted someone to them intruding on her grounds.

Once they finished with the grave-robbing, they proceeded with the breaking-and-entering part of their mission. The protections on the Department of Mysteries had been thoroughly improved since the Lady Voldemort's vanquishing, but they were entirely unbothered by a late night visit of Unspeakable Potter and his guest.

"This is it," Harry said, leading Severus down, down, down towards the Veil.

It hung limp and unmoving, same as always when Harry came in. That was probably a good thing. Harry did not need for his husband to be tempted by Death's whispers.

They stopped right in front of it. Harry could see their reflections in the surface, though his research had proven that nobody else could. "It's time," he said to Severus, even as his reflection changed. Harriet, just as fifteen as she'd been when she had died, held up three fingers. She counted them down, three, two, one.

Severus drew the Elder Wand from his robes and offered it hilt-first to the Veil.

Nothing happened. Harriet winked, and Harry rolled his eyes at her.

"You need to put it in. Just a little push. It's okay."

He watched Severus' wry smile in their reflection. Then he watched the Wand sink into the Veil's surface like it was being dropped into a lake. The Veil didn't ripple so much as shiver, then turned grey, almost translucent.

Harry frowned. He could see through to the other side, which had never happened before. He summoned a tool and poked its surface, ignoring Severus' shout of protest.

The Veil shattered, fracturing into flakes that seemed to burn like floating flecks of ash.

Harry stepped back to Severus's side.

"Do you think they'll fire me?" Harry asked, staring at the empty arch. He wanted to conjure a bouncy ball to toss through it, but that seemed irreverent. "I mean, I was hired to study the Veil. No Veil, no Unspeakable Potter."

"I'm more concerned that we have broken Death. What if nobody can die any longer?"

Harry shook his head. "No, that was just linked to the Hallows, nothing else. Death doesn't need a Veil, nor a master to wield his Wand. We can just leave Death to it."

"In that case, we should leave here, post haste."

Grinning, Harry took his husband's hand. "Yeah," he said, leading the way back to the exit. He let out a little laugh. "We did it. It's done."

"Yes, Harry, I'm so glad we're done with the grave-robbing."

"I never said it wasn't grave-robbing, Severus."

Notes:

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